Plant Resources Utilization Among Different Ethnic Groups of Ladakh in Trans-Himalayan Region
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biology Article Plant Resources Utilization among Different Ethnic Groups of Ladakh in Trans-Himalayan Region Shiekh Marifatul Haq 1,2, Umer Yaqoob 1, Eduardo Soares Calixto 3 , Inayat Ur Rahman 4,* , Abeer Hashem 5, Elsayed Fathi Abd_Allah 6 , Maha Abdullah Alakeel 5, Abdulaziz A. Alqarawi 6, Mohnad Abdalla 7 , Musheerul Hassan 8 , Rainer W. Bussmann 9 , Arshad Mehmood Abbasi 10 , Sami Ur Rahman 11 and Farhana Ijaz 4 1 Department of Botany, University of Kashmir Srinagar, Srinagar 190006, India; [email protected] (S.M.H.); [email protected] (U.Y.) 2 Wildlife Crime Control Division, Wildlife Trust of India, Noida 201301, India 3 Institute of Biology, University of São Paulo, São Paulo 05315-970, Brazil; [email protected] 4 Department of Botany, Hazara University, Mansehra 21300, Pakistan; [email protected] 5 Botany and Microbiology Department, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia; [email protected] (A.H.); [email protected] (M.A.A.) 6 Department of Plant Production, College of Food and Agriculture Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia; [email protected] (E.F.A.); [email protected] (A.A.A.) 7 Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology (Ministry of Education), Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, 44 Cultural West Road, Jinan 250012, China; [email protected] 8 Clybay Research Private Limited, Bangalore 560114, India; [email protected] 9 Department of Ethnobotany, Institute of Botany, Ilia State University, 1 Botanical Street, Tbilisi 0105, Georgia; Citation: Haq, S.M.; Yaqoob, U.; [email protected] 10 Calixto, E.S.; Rahman, I.U.; Hashem, Department of Environmental Sciences, Abbottabad Campus, COMSATS University Islamabad, A.; Abd_Allah, E.F.; Alakeel, M.A.; Islamabad 22060, Pakistan; [email protected] 11 Nawaz Sharif Kidney Teaching Hospital and Postgraduate Institute Manglawar, Swat 19200, Pakistan; Alqarawi, A.A.; Abdalla, M.; Hassan, [email protected] M.; et al. Plant Resources Utilization * Correspondence: [email protected] among Different Ethnic Groups of Ladakh in Trans-Himalayan Region. Simple Summary: Indigenous communities are a large resource of increasingly endangered, tradi- Biology 2021, 10, 827. https:// doi.org/10.3390/biology10090827 tionally used medicinal plants and the associated ecological knowledge, which needs to be docu- mented quickly as the base to establish sustainable livelihoods and healthcare systems. Through Academic Editor: the interaction of indigenous knowledge, biodiversity, and the surrounding environment, these Panayiotis Dimitrakopoulos communities have developed their livelihoods over time. In this study, we tried to obtain an in-depth understanding of ethnomedicinal, cultural, and ritual perspectives on plant diversity in the Ladakh Received: 23 June 2021 region and evaluated how the wild flora of Ladakh could improve local livelihoods and alleviate Accepted: 9 August 2021 poverty. By surveying and applying open- and close-ended semi-structured interviews and group Published: 26 August 2021 discussions in three communities, we documented 105 ethnobotanically important plants belonging to 39 families. The Balti and Brokpa ethnic groups showed greater similarity, whereas the least Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral overlap in plant use was observed between Beda and Brokpa. Plants common to all cultures were with regard to jurisdictional claims in mostly used for medicinal applications, while some were also used for religious purposes in the two published maps and institutional affil- major religions (Islam and Buddhism). A total of 37 species were shared by all cultures (Balti, Brokpa, iations. and Beda). The cluster analysis elucidated three major clusters of different ethnobotanical usage. The first cluster included food and medicinal plants, the second included clusters of dye and flavor plants, and the third included plants used for fragrance, oil, fuel wood, and fodder. Plant parts were collected based on their availability in distinct pheno-phases according to the Tibetan traditional calendar. This Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. study’s findings revealed that plants provide tangible economic benefits to indigenous communities, Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. in addition to aiding in the treatment of various ailments. Sustainable use and management of wild This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and resources can help improve livelihoods and food security and alleviate poverty. conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// Abstract: The nomadic pastoral indigenous communities of the Ladakhi people share roots with creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ Tibetan culture in terms of food, clothing, religion, festivals, and habits, and rely widely on plant 4.0/). resources for survival and livelihood. This survey was conducted during 2019–2021 to document Biology 2021, 10, 827. https://doi.org/10.3390/biology10090827 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/biology Biology 2021, 10, 827 2 of 34 the indigenous knowledge about plant resources of the Balti, Beda, and Brokpa communities of the Ladakh region, trans-Himalayas. Open- and close-ended semi-structured interviews (N = 184) and group discussions (N = 17) were used to collect the data. Quantitative data was further analyzed using various statistical tools. A total of 105 plant species belonging to 82 genera and 39 families were used as medicine, fuel wood, fragrance, oil, food, flavor, fodder, decoration, and dye. Among these, medicinal use was most prevalent, with 70% of use reports, followed by fodder and fuel wood. Leaves (27%) were the most preferred plant part used, followed by roots and flowers. The principal component analysis revealed five clusters of ethnobotanical usage, i.e., food, medicine, fuel wood, fodder, and fragrance, oil, dye, and flavor. The maximum number of plant species used was reported by the Brokpa, while the Beda reported the minimum number of plant species uses. Delphinium brunonianum, Waldheimia tomentosa, and Juniperus indica played a significant role in the cultural and religious ritual aspects, whereas Allium przewalskianum, Waldheimia tomentosa, Juniperus indica, and Hippophae rhamnoides were commonly used as a livelihood source among Ladakhi communities. The local people collected most plants (65%) for self-consumption, while the rest (35%) were sold in markets as a source of income. The sustainable utilization and management of plant resources by local people is a strategy to boost livelihoods and food security and alleviate poverty. Keywords: biodiversity; ethnobotanical uses; plant resource; Ladakh; chord diagram; trans-Himalayas 1. Introduction Humanity has always been dependent on ecosystem services [1]. Plant biodiversity throughout the globe has been providing these ecosystem services in terms of both economy and culture [2], including food and fodder for humans and their livestock, timber, firewood, and herbal remedies for treating various ailments [3]. Many plant resources have cultural importance, e.g., in education, in religion, as totems, for aesthetics, etc., and are important for socio-economic and industrial activities [4,5]. Indigenous communities have developed broad ecological knowledge and are, often, still dependent on wild plants for food, fodder, medicines, and other purposes. The focus on traditional plant foraging is especially vital in remote tribal areas in comprehending its role in the sustainability of food systems and for the promotion and discovery of novel local gastronomies [6]. Ethnomedical practices have resulted in the development of traditional medicinal systems such as Unani, Siddha, Sowa-Rigpa, and Ayurveda and are also part of many even allopathic drugs [7]. The population of developing countries is especially reliant on these traditional plant-based medicines due to the lack of modern health facilities [8]. Ethnobiological field studies have widely shown that indigenous communities represent a significant reservoir of disappearing folk plants and ecological knowledge, which needs to be immediately documented to develop sustainable food and healthcare systems [9]. Wild plants play an imperative role in the livelihood of tribal people [10]. Over the years, traditional knowledge has resulted in the development of systems providing livelihood to the indigenous communities. These sustainable livelihoods are developed over the years through the interaction of indigenous knowledge, biodiversity, and the surrounding environment [11]. Traditional knowledge has also been proved to be effective in the conservation of biological resources, which are important stakeholders in conserving biodiversity. This complex relationship is difficult to manage by outside experts. Thus, to conserve the diversity of different plants used by indigenous communities, it is imperative to involve indigenous communities in conserving them as they know how the different interaction factors work with each other [11]. Ladakh has a rich history of medicinal and wild food plants, but limited studies on the utilization of wild plant species that could help in identifying novel and potential sources of medicines, food, and other plant products have been carried out to document the associated traditional knowledge. The Sowa-Rigpa herbal medicine system is considered the oldest codified healthcare system known to humanity [12]. The conservation of the records